https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys
Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.
I call this enshittification, and it is a seemingly inevitable consequence arising from the combination of the ease of changing how a platform allocates value, combined with the nature of a "two sided market," where a platform sits between buyers and sellers, hold each hostage to the other, raking off an ever-larger share of the value that passes between them.
[...] Search Amazon for "cat beds" and the entire first screen is ads, including ads for products Amazon cloned from its own sellers, putting them out of business (third parties have to pay 45% in junk fees to Amazon, but Amazon doesn't charge itself these fees). All told, the first five screens of results for "cat bed" are 50% ads.
This is enshittification: surpluses are first directed to users; then, once they're locked in, surpluses go to suppliers; then once they're locked in, the surplus is handed to shareholders and the platform becomes a useless pile of shit. From mobile app stores to Steam, from Facebook to Twitter, this is the enshittification lifecycle.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Freeman on Wednesday January 25 2023, @03:13PM (8 children)
"enshittification", can't say I've heard that one.
I mean, if you thought Facebook, Twitter, or TikTok were "valuable resources" or anything other than privacy invasion data gathering schemes, you may need to re-think a few things.
Amazon is an online store, Steam is a platform for digital distribution of games, and Google is an advertisement/e-mail/search/smartphone OS behemoth.
Facebook is that gossip platform that replaced MySpace. Twitter was a novel way to let everyone know when you used the restroom. TikTok is the latest software fad that's got kids doing stupid stuff on the internet. They could all die and the world would be a better place.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 25 2023, @06:18PM (5 children)
>"enshittification", can't say I've heard that one.
I believe it's a new way of saying: Unregulated Capitalism.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 25 2023, @06:33PM (2 children)
It's the human ego at work. Every workplace I've been in is full of hierarchical types trying to gain responsibilities (power) while offloading the labor to someone else. In fact, I've got a theory that corporations' primary role is to absorb narcissists and keep them busy so the rest of us can get on with our pleasant uneventful lives unburdened by the vicissitudes of "success".
Corporations rise and fall depending on their life cycle, feeding off egos and consuming the humans who spend years gnashing and wailing inside. MY BONUS is SMALLLLLLER than HIS... NOOOO!!!
(Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 25 2023, @08:42PM (1 child)
I've mainly worked in smaller organizations, where the overriding concern of "will we have enough money to keep the lights on" sometimes brings people together enough that they're not constantly trying to "one-up the next guy." I mean, sure, that's still there, but it's a bit more muted than what I saw in the mid-sized corporation which ran much as you are describing: knife in back, pull self upwards enough to reach next back, rinse lather repeat.
Finally, one of the small scrappy shops I worked for was bought out by a big corporation, and indeed I do see signs of "climbers" all around the company, but many of them cycle in and out. We're a relatively stable big company (50+ years as a leader in our field), and while those climbers come and go, there's also a core team of "lifers" who quietly float up through the promotion levels and generally just sit back and shake their head at the knife wielders looking for backs to stab. There are also genuine "do good climbers" who get the PhDs, do the community service, and genuinely seem to be enjoying it when they're sent on global travel for customer support - more power to 'em, I wish them well and do not lust after the 20% pay boost that they got and I didn't last year, they earned it.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 26 2023, @02:35AM
Crabs in a bucket. It's usually worse in times of great abundance and prosperity, where world war III can be started by a dog pissing on the neighbor's petunias
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Thursday January 26 2023, @05:14PM (1 child)
Does the government have a compelling interest to regulate the user interface of TikTok?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday January 28 2023, @08:42PM
The government serves the people, at some point they do step in, for instance to stop the selling of "snake oil" promoted as health cure-alls that take people's money and actually delays them seeking proper care. Also: selling "death trap machines" that can travel up to 100mph but don't include things like seat belts because that might make the customers think they are unsafe. Outright fraud (Bernie Maddoff), broadcast of misinformation and other material not in the public interest, etc. Government steps in a lot.
This internet thingy is pretty new in the greater scheme of things, when people start dying, or losing lots of money, or acting like they're going to vote out the incumbent legislators, because of how it's being run, Government may well step in and try to make things a little more friendly to the interests of the constituency.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Funny) by kazzie on Wednesday January 25 2023, @09:03PM (1 child)
In other words, when you undertook enshittification?
(Score: 5, Funny) by DeathMonkey on Thursday January 26 2023, @05:16PM
Hopefully you are de-shittifying yourself in the restroom.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by richtopia on Wednesday January 25 2023, @03:21PM (77 children)
My perception is that these platforms have to go down the road of pushing shit in order to achieve profitability. The only reason we get the platforms' original garbage-lite deployment is because money
iswas cheap in the macro economy, so venture capital was shoveling money at anyone with an app idea. Eventually the company is large enough that real shareholders exist and they want payouts - so the company needs to figure out how to generate revenue. Elon's struggle with Twitter may be one of the most public examples of this transition.(Score: 5, Informative) by DannyB on Wednesday January 25 2023, @04:03PM (40 children)
Elon's struggle with Twitter was because he got "triggered" because someone he worships was kicked off Twitter for repeatedly violating Twitter's policies. Twitter bent its rules to try to accommodate this person, for a time. The dangerous tweets continued eventually forcing Twitter's hand.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 25 2023, @04:43PM (39 children)
Great first-glance. Let's look deeper. Elon believes in Free Speech. Everyone should study history, but no, many people think they're smarter than the USA's Founding Fathers, so they re-invent the concept. "If you say something I don't like, that's dangerous! You're dangerous!"
Okay, then we do more and more and more policing of writing, speech, and everything, and we move ever more toward a totalitarian police state. Wonderful.
Oh but wait, those same people want to defund police. Huh, something's not making sense.
Back to Freedom of Speech.
https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-free-speech [dosomething.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech [wikipedia.org]
The better path is for everyone to take things with a grain of salt. "Triggered" are the people who can't let it go and move on with life. I guess they don't have enough to keep them busy.
You have the right to be on the side of oppression. You have the right to talk and write about it, but wow, I'm not sure what you're afraid of. I'm not sure why you want to subvert the USA and its Constitution, and have to re-learn what the colonists went through that led them into a Revolution.
I'm not sure why you'd support the philosophies that lead to, for example, countries in the world, right now, that MURDER their own citizens for daring to SPEAK against the established State Religion. You'd be one of the DEAD ones now. You don't seem to understand how much has gone into the centuries of struggles and fights and death that led to the freedoms you so obviously take for granted.
Study, and think a bit, about where Elon is from, what they've gone through in only a few short generations. Sure, like all societies they have some problems, but look how far they've come, how much oppression they've overcome, the freedoms they now enjoy. They learned much from the USA's many many years of many many similar struggles. You and yours deeply dishonor people like the USA's Founding Fathers, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, and far too many to list here.
You're much smarter than your words. Learn from history. Study it. Stop with the herding mentality. Shed your ego and pride that makes you think you're smarter than history's truly great people and what they did and sacrificed, for us.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 25 2023, @06:41PM (32 children)
Lost me here:
> ...and we move ever more toward a totalitarian police state...
You falsely imagine a Golden Era when we had more free speech than we do now. We are talking about it now whereas in every other possible time and place in history we have been prohibited and prevented from speaking truth. Acknowledging the existence of prohibited speech is the beginnings of free speech. We can have a conversation about non-protected speech - oh look, we are. That's the opposite of a totalitarian police state.
(Score: 3, Informative) by khallow on Wednesday January 25 2023, @07:30PM (24 children)
How about 20 years ago? That was when Twitter, Facebook, etc were young and didn't have all this censorship infrastructure in place and various governments hadn't cared enough to impose the requirement for such infrastructure. And given how much better 20 years ago is that now, forgive us for thinking that maybe it'll get worse 20 years from now - with some part of that harm coming from people who wet their pants over "dangerous tweets".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 25 2023, @08:33PM (11 children)
Show me something that was written 20 years ago that is prohibited now.
(Score: 5, Funny) by kazzie on Wednesday January 25 2023, @09:05PM (2 children)
I can't: It's prohibited.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 25 2023, @10:55PM (1 child)
Well that's fucking convenient for your argument. A Golden Wonderland 20 years ago that was DEFINITELY TEH BESTEST but nobody except a few Elders remember nostalgically. That's definitely not ripe for abuse. May I purchase a red baseball cap too?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by driverless on Thursday January 26 2023, @12:38AM
That's actually what makes MAGA so potent, everyone who's used it since Reagan (he was just the first of many) has recognised that it's effective because everyone decides for themselves when America was "great". Whether it was pre-Civil War with the darkies singin' in the fields and pickin' cotton or the late 1800s when a select few were getting rich off the suffering of others or the 1940s when we had the bomb and no-one else did or the 1950s when uppity women knew their place, everyone gets to chose the time they want to dream about.
And, presumably, the demographic they at that time they want to be part of, because you certainly didn't want to be anything but a higher-level boss or owner during the Gilded Age.
(Score: 1, Informative) by khallow on Wednesday January 25 2023, @11:48PM (4 children)
The entire Twitter history [politico.com] of Donald Trump. Seriously, Twitter announced in April 2021, that it wouldn't let the National Archives make available former president Trump's tweets available. The entire history, including a couple decades of stuff that didn't get banned, was completely censored. That account lasted about 12 years [timesofisrael.com].
(Score: 0, Redundant) by khallow on Thursday January 26 2023, @12:04AM
Sorry, sloppy writing.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 26 2023, @08:13AM
That ain't prohibited you retard. That's your problem you didn't save them on your own hard drive rather than expect someone else to host that shit. You can read Trump's Tweets to your hearts content in any public space in this country. Shame on you - fuck you - for associating your precious expectations with oppression.
(Score: 4, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Thursday January 26 2023, @05:26PM (1 child)
Here ya go, first result on google. [thetrumparchive.com]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Friday January 27 2023, @04:53AM
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday January 26 2023, @02:19AM (2 children)
Help me please, I am a good Christian Nigerian Prince who has been cast out by evil men in my country. I have a considerable fortune tied up in the U.S. banking system and I humbly ask your assistance in retrieving it. For your troubles I will reward you with 10% of my US$247 million balance. All we must do to retrieve my fortune, and your fee, is give me your account number...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Saturday January 28 2023, @07:06PM (1 child)
In Europe it's pretty routine to give people your bank number, so that they can deposit money in it.
So the normal practice isn't to write a cheque to pay someone; it's to send your bank a request to transfer money to their bank.
It has the effect of eliminating NSF cheques.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday January 28 2023, @08:35PM
Oh, this is just the first step, the ones that respond to this are far more likely to take the next step and pay a "small fee" to release the funds.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday January 26 2023, @03:54AM (11 children)
Maybe if you directed some of your ire towards those that were making tweets dangerous instead of digging your heels in to defend them...
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Thursday January 26 2023, @04:40AM (10 children)
I'd be wasting my time. Even if they were to change which is unlikely, someone new would take their place. There's not much point to caring in the first place either since dangerous tweets are about the same as non-dangerous tweets in terms of danger to others.
And besides, the real problem here are the people who are willing to crack down on everyone's speech because there are mean/stupid people somewhere in the world.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Tork on Thursday January 26 2023, @04:54AM (9 children)
Because people were hurt. This distinction is important because it's the reason lots of people scream about being CeNsOrEd when in actuality a private entity opted to sever their relationship with them. 🙄
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 26 2023, @05:21AM (8 children)
By those tweets? Prove it.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Tork on Thursday January 26 2023, @05:40AM (7 children)
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 26 2023, @05:43AM (6 children)
While I've defended such people, they didn't merely tweet. You're moving the goalposts.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Tork on Thursday January 26 2023, @06:01AM (3 children)
Your energy would be better spent focused in the right direction.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Thursday January 26 2023, @06:34AM (2 children)
In other words, if things went as you claim, the talking actually made the situation safer by giving information to authorities which would stop further criminal acts.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday January 26 2023, @07:25AM (1 child)
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 26 2023, @01:19PM
Except of course under a variety of circumstances such as providing a public space (restricting their ability to restrict political speech, for example) or advertising their openness for who they do business with. My take is that this is in large part a bait and switch. This arbitrary censorship and massive personal data collecting isn't what users signed up for, but that's what they're getting now.
And if they're censoring people in exchange for benefits from a US-based government, the First Amendment comes into play. So no, there are constraints on that freedom. I think some of those come into play for major social media sites.
Perhaps.
(Score: 5, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Thursday January 26 2023, @05:37PM (1 child)
Seditious Conspiracy is a plot to overthrow the government. They did their plotting via tweet. And they were convicted of this crime by a jury of their peers.
Four Oath Keepers convicted of Jan. 6 seditious conspiracy [apnews.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 26 2023, @07:24PM
And? The story has better:
That's real evidence but notice that key phrases "the weapons were never used" and "lack of evidence that the Oath Keepers had an explicit plan" (presumably the prosecution disagrees). Basically, if law enforcement on the scene had acted brutally, then we might see some real though disorganized sedition. But neither happened.
And that's a story of seditious conspiracy I'm willing to buy should we find more evidence for it (which might be in the court documents though no one has mentioned it yet): that there was intent by this group to use these protests to push the defenses of the Capitol hard enough that the escalation of large scale shooting started. That would provide ideological cover for the guns to come out of storage (they did have those "rapid deployment teams") and mass sedition/civil war to start. But so far, I still have yet to hear more here than a bunch of ITG (Internet tough guys) ranting about how awesome they'll be when the civil war starts and organizing their part of the January 6 protest (definitely not spontaneously!). The firearms could just as well be part of a paranoid, ill-thought self-defense plan (though that would be during the commission of at least felony trespass and unlikely to hold up in court as self-defense).
I still have yet to see the damning evidence of seditious conspiracy, but they do show remarkable bad behavior and numerous other crimes committed. They did plan their actions ahead of time which would be necessary for any sort of conspiracy charge. And if the police acted in the way that they expected or worried about, there probably would be a lot more deaths.
Again, this doesn't show a need for censorship of social media. Instead, I'd say social media helped defuse the situation by more rapidly bringing down public condemnation of the protest. There was remarkable professionalism and restraint on the part of the police involved versus the thuggish behavior of the protesters - much which was available unfiltered through that social media. And as a result, the protesters failed hard and more thoroughly than if they could have offered the excuse of censorship as to why they looked bad.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 25 2023, @10:58PM (6 children)
Not sure who you are, but you're definitely someone who takes things to extremes. "Black-or-white" thinker, a.k.a "binary thinker" you are.
It's a dynamic, in motion, moving toward totalitarianism. But, because you're obviously on the side of wanting more censorship, you defend censorship, and generally the side of "some speech will land you in prison".
Nobody's arguing in favor of it being okay to yell "FIRE!" in a crowded theater. It's a matter of drawing lines; shades of gray.
I can't wait until they start censoring your beloved (but crazy) ideals being uttered or (gads!) written.
(Score: 2, Troll) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday January 26 2023, @07:26AM (5 children)
So incitement to violence is fine then?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Disagree) by khallow on Thursday January 26 2023, @01:41PM (4 children)
What incitement to violence? I think there's clear signs that this is already being misapplied badly.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday January 26 2023, @01:54PM (3 children)
I give you, just as a random example, the entire leadup to the January 6th insurrection. Stop playing dumb, asshole. No one's fooled.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 26 2023, @06:42PM (2 children)
And that's relevant why? The lead up didn't commit any crimes except allegedly that of seditious conspiracy. It wouldn't count as incitement to violence since the participants all had plenty of opportunity to reflect on their future actions. That's a legal thing [ncac.org].
Moral of the story: learn what legal phrases mean before you drop them in an internet conversation where everyone has access to Google.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday January 27 2023, @01:47AM (1 child)
"Stochastic terrorism" is a bit too advanced a concept for you I see. No one so blind as he who will not look, of course :)
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday January 27 2023, @04:45AM
More too bullshit a phrase. I see serious use of the phrase as a sign of weaseling.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday January 26 2023, @05:11PM (3 children)
Nobody was suppressing Elon's free speech. Nobody was suppressing Trump's free speech. Twitter (and other platforms) are not obligated to carry your message if it violates their policies. They were not trying to censor conservative views, they were stopping the spread of dangerous misinformation. If you want dangerous misinformation, there are plenty of platforms other than Twitter which are happy to provide you with that.
YouTube was taking down videos of the Tide Pod Challenge. Is that censoring free speech? I say it is not. It is enforcing their written policy -- that the poster agreed to.
Free Speech, in the constitution is only about the government not suppressing political views. Something that many other countries do, but the USA does not do. The government allows your free speech. Private platforms do not have to host it. And there are plenty of private platforms that will welcome dangerous misinformation if that is what you like.
But I will suggest:
Don't eat Tide Pods
Don't take horse dewormer to treat a novel Avian Flu virus when there is a real vaccine available.
Don't try to somehow put ultraviolet lights inside your body as a treatment for covid-19.
Don't stand near the edge of a cliff.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 26 2023, @06:15PM
Oppression!
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 26 2023, @10:04PM
Don't pull on Superman's cape.
And don't spit in the wind either.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday January 27 2023, @04:50AM
There are several exceptions. For example: when their policies are a case of false advertising, discriminating on the usual list (race, sex, political beliefs, religion, etc), and if they're acting as agents of a US-based government (subject to First Amendment).
(Score: 3, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Thursday January 26 2023, @05:21PM
Elon only cares about free speech for Elon.
Meanwhile, he is busy banning anyone who dares to criticize him. [cnn.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Friday January 27 2023, @02:43PM
Bzzzzzt. Elon does NOT believe in free speech. He just uses "free speech absolutist" to virtue signal. He doesn't believe in free speech and never will.
THERE ARE NO FREE SPEECH ABSOLUTISTS.
Just like there are no unicorns.
Free Speech Absolutist Elon Musk Pulls Down Documentary About India PM Modi [techdirt.com]
Elon has banned other things on Twitter that he personally did not like. So please don't tell me Elon believes in free speech. He just got triggered because someone he worships violated Twitter's well stated policies -- policies that the user agreed to -- and then that person got kicked off several social media platforms for willfully spreading dangerous misinformation.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 25 2023, @06:21PM (35 children)
Well, there's the old competitive market problem of: everybody else is doing it, so we have to do it in order to compete / survive economically.
Imagine a world with UBI, where people do things because they want to, not because they need money for food or rent or their 2nd Gulfstream V... I wonder if you can.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 25 2023, @06:48PM (15 children)
We have allowed Capital to rule our societies. If you are born correctly, you already have UBI and more. Apparently those with genetically-endowed UBI like nothing more than... fucking over people who do not. It seems to be an acquired taste, or perhaps a psychiatric affliction, of the useless idle rich who need validation in the form of seeing other people suffer more than them, since that proves how much better off they are.
(Score: 5, Funny) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 25 2023, @07:42PM (3 children)
Just missing the meaning of U, it's like Oprah: "U get enough money to live, and you get enough money to live, and you get enough money to live, and you get enough money to live, EVERYBODY gets enough money to live." Universal.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 25 2023, @08:35PM (2 children)
Well, forgive me, I was imagining why we have to imagine it.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 25 2023, @09:01PM (1 child)
Because we don't have the U yet, not even on a state much less national level. I mean, O.K. Alaska has the Permanent fund and that is universal for people who spend 6+ months resident in state, but that's both unreliable in it's amount and hardly starts to make up for the increased costs of living in the great frozen North. Take the Alaska Permanent fund and push that up to $15K per year per person, reliable, throughout the state of Alaska, and see how that changes things. Right now the AK permanent fund payout typically only runs $1K-$2K per year. Average heating costs in Fairbanks run over $6K per year. Now, make that U across the whole US of A at $15K per person per year and see what happens...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 25 2023, @09:21PM
I suspect we will go on hearing the sob stories of orange-haired cry babies, with silver spoons cascading out of their pouty mouths, who haven't been allowed to be Pwesident or Kingy Wingy.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by khallow on Thursday January 26 2023, @12:06AM (10 children)
It's like saying you allow food and water to rule your life. There are some things that are necessary for a society to exist and function at any level, even that of living in a cave. Capital is one of those things. So is labor whether from human sources or not.
Or if you work. That's why I'm not interested in UBI. This is already a solved problem.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday January 26 2023, @07:28AM (9 children)
Fire is necessary too, but look what happens when fires run out of control. You're either deliberately strawmanning what the GP said, in which case you're evil, or you're too dumb to understand it, in which case you shouldn't be posting here. Myself, I'm learning toward "you're evil," given you don't seem to be lacking points in INT. WIS, for sure, but not INT.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 26 2023, @06:26PM (4 children)
I'll respond to you, since the other poster is arguing in bad faith (equating Trump's twitter ban with actual political repression, pffft get lost twat).
Capital amassed by inheritance (or corruption) stifles innovation. A large fraction of our population are indebted from birth - Original Sin, if you like - while those blessed in the Lamb of inherited wealth, whose main talent is to ignore their privilege, throw tantrums about the tardiness of the server bringing their caviar.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by khallow on Friday January 27 2023, @01:59PM (3 children)
Truth is an absolute defense against such accusations.
And of course, nothing relevant to the thread. Typical class warfare bullshit. UBI wouldn't solve such problems since the rich would still be richer and have that attitude, and the clueless could still borrow more money than they can afford.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Saturday January 28 2023, @06:32PM (2 children)
Only when the one presenting said truth is believed.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday January 28 2023, @07:45PM (1 child)
Because truth is only true when it's "believed"? Well, I believe it. Box is checked.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Saturday January 28 2023, @09:13PM
Truth that is not believed will not convince.
Truth that is not believed may, however, kill.
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Friday January 27 2023, @01:55PM (3 children)
Nothing is technically out of control yet. And sorry, with all these controls on capital (including a bunch of market based ones), I don't buy that it'll be the first to go out of control.
Nonsense. The post I replied to was a real, brazen straw man. They even capitalized Capital. Here's the obvious rebuttal to that post. If the rich really were as bad as that poster claimed, then why would we want to make everyone else like them via UBI? There's inherent contradictions in a lot of these narratives that happen because people aren't thinking, just like that poster was.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday January 29 2023, @09:30PM (2 children)
"We" do not want to make "everyone else like [the rich]" via UBI you disingenuous little shit. "We" want people not to have to fucking worry about homelessness, death by freezing in an unheated home, or lack of food via UBI. Go to Hell.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by khallow on Sunday January 29 2023, @09:43PM (1 child)
Well, I guess the original poster shouldn't have written:
On your post:
Given that most people don't have to fucking worry about homelessness, death by freezing in an unheated home, or lack of food, I'm going with needs-based entitlements as being better tools. Particularly I bet we'll still see a lot of people make the sort of bad decisions, like borrowing against their UBI income for frivolous stuff, that will cause such worries.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday January 30 2023, @04:26AM
You really have no idea how bad it is in this country do you? Shut up and go away already. You don't know what you're talking about, as usual.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 4, Interesting) by GloomMower on Wednesday January 25 2023, @07:25PM (5 children)
> Imagine a world with UBI, where people do things because they want to, not because they need money for food or rent or their 2nd Gulfstream V... I wonder if you can.
I do wonder, and I like the idea. In my wondering...
I don't think it's goal is what you say. A lot of the time UBI is just high enough that you don't have to fear starving. So there would still be incentives to get the 2nd gulfstream, because you can't on UBI. If you give people enough UBI that they live really darn good that almost no one would want to work, if it did then...
Who is going to farm the food, or build buildings you live in? People that want extra than UBI offers? Does UBI change depending on what people say they need? Can you really do the things you want to do if no one is making the things you want? If I want to play video games but no one is making them, or are there only hobby video games now? Or if I like to paint, but who is making the paint and canvas?
UBI only work in the future with robots doing everything? What about the stuff robots can't do, or who makes improvements?
I like UBI, but always assumed it would be tied to worker demand. When worker demand is low UBI would be higher, and that is a good time to go to school to learn stuff or do your hobby, get skills with worker-demand is back to high again. When worker-demand is high then UBI is low.
Ends up being very complicated. I'm sure there are different kinds of UBI, have you read many good economic models how it all works, at least maybe the ones that are more than just subsistence UBI, or ever read anything about a UBI that you get two gulfstreams?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 25 2023, @08:00PM (4 children)
>A lot of the time UBI is just high enough that you don't have to fear starving. So there would still be incentives to get the 2nd gulfstream, because you can't on UBI.
Sure, and I think that's a very good way of rating a society: do you simply not fear starving in that society, or do you truly have enough freedom to build, create and explore? Note: UBI doesn't mean nobody works, people still want that Cessna Citation (faster than the G5) so they're gonna work to get it. The thing is: they'll be operating in an environment where they can't get people to come do their bidding just because those people can't afford food, or rent, or healthcare...
>Who is going to farm the food, or build buildings you live in?
People who want more than what UBI provides, which I suspect is pretty much everyone at some level. UBI doesn't provide much in the way of feelings of self worth or belonging, which is what a lot of people get out of work - or volunteering.
>Does UBI change depending on what people say they need?
In my mind, no, and that would be the beautiful justice of it: no rules, no tests, no bureaucratic administration, simple test: one living legal citizen? If so: one income stream to you or your legal guardian. I do believe there would need to be dis-incentives to overpopulation, no more UBI after 1st child per parent for instance.
>Can you really do the things you want to do if no one is making the things you want?
So, the transition will be ticklish - and fraught with fraud - but picture UBI starting at $1 per day per person and slowly increasing from there. Where's the incentive for people to stop making the things you want? At some point we get the "great resignation" where we can't get people to work in Taco Bell for $8 per hour anymore, and Taco Bell adjusts to that - or dies. Is Taco Bell then replaced by Tito's Taco Tavern, where Tito from Tijuana and his wife Hilda from Hamburg make Tacos and sell traditional German beer, and maybe they lose a little money some months because they're not competitive with Taco Bell (until it dies), but that's O.K. because they still have enough UBI coming in to meet their other monetary needs? Personally, I'd rather live in a world of 10,000 unique (safe and regulated, independently and reliably reviewed) restaurants like Tito's Taco Tavern and maybe a lot less Taco Bells...
>When worker demand is low UBI would be higher
Some of that is inevitable, but a reliable level of UBI is also a key component, providing security, assurance that you will be able to do the things you are planning (like eating, and sleeping with a roof over your head...)
>I'm sure there are different kinds of UBI
I'm sure within the current system that UBI will become complicated, corrupt, and far from fair at its initial rollout, but maybe if the benefits are clear enough anyway it might make it something that people are willing to fight for.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 26 2023, @01:27AM (3 children)
Assuming there was enough confidence in UBI being around till you hit retirement age, UBI would provide safety nets for would-be entrepreneurs, so we might see people start more "diverse" businesses. Mark Zuckerberg had a dad who was rich and generous enough to offer him a McD franchise: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/06/mark-zuckerbergs-dad-offered-him-college-or-a-mcdonalds-franchise.html [cnbc.com]
You might see more books and "low end" games being produced too.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday January 26 2023, @03:12AM (2 children)
>UBI would provide safety nets for would-be entrepreneurs, so we might see people start more "diverse" businesses.
I think this would be one of the best / most interesting aspects of such a future.
If you look at the "wisdom of the ages" from Plato through Galileo, DaVinci, Newton, etc. the authors/inventors/writers all had one thing in common: their basic costs of living provided for.
For every great enduring invention or idea handed down from a crop picker working all their days in the fields, there are 100s, perhaps 1000s that come from the aristocrats of their day, or people relatively comfortably employed by those aristocrats to do the creative work.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 26 2023, @08:31AM (1 child)
So there's 2 ways to take this.
* One way says the talent available to further humanity is limited by opportunity.
* The other says the best talent rose to the top in a competitive environment.
Guess which society inheritees believe in?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday January 28 2023, @08:52PM
Of course it's a bit of both, but in my view there's plenty of talent out there that gets stifled by a lack of opportunity. The competitive environment merely kicks out some of the absolute imbeciles who can't "make it happen" in their roles, giving the next in line a chance to try - but ignoring thousands of others who might do it better but have no opportunity to try. That's why the relative independence (freedom) of UBI would be so great for innovation.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 25 2023, @07:33PM (12 children)
I imagine they could watch some really great TV and keep a really nice sofa warm. Then they would vote for this great guy who will promise them more UBI though he's a bit nebulous on how. And the enshittification of modern society would continue.
(Score: 5, Touché) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 25 2023, @08:02PM (11 children)
>I imagine they could watch some really great TV and keep a really nice sofa warm.
We all know the limits of your imagination.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by khallow on Wednesday January 25 2023, @11:20PM (10 children)
We all know the limits of UBI too. It's not going make great people out of couch potatoes - because we have similar programs today and well, they don't do much for us. The "we'd do great things if only someone would give us a piddling amount of money per month" is nonsense.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 25 2023, @11:46PM (9 children)
>because we have similar programs today and well, they don't do much for us.
In your mind. First problem with the programs you refer to is that they require recipients to be verifiable couch potatoes or risk conviction on federal felony fraud charges. Then we can talk about the army of administrative bureaucrats that are paid gatekeepers for the program which provides no security to non couch potatoes.
Change that and you will see vastly different results from the program.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Disagree) by khallow on Thursday January 26 2023, @12:17AM (8 children)
First, such programs as you refer to are still cheaper than UBI. Need-based is funny that way - you're only paying for a small number of people rather than everyone. Second, we have pension funds as the UBI equivalent which are not needs based. You don't have to achieve couch potato status or even stop working in a lot of cases. There's a few interesting retirees out there, but for the most part it's just a mass of people who aren't doing much. I don't mind people who worked hard and now don't. But I don't want to pay people to become couch potatoes. That's harmful in two ways, both as an utter waste of my money and as a great harm to people who are encouraged to just sit around.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday January 26 2023, @02:29AM (7 children)
What part of "you're financially secure enough to go back to school or otherwise take the time required to find a better job" is encouraging people to just sit around?
If someone is so lazy that their true ambition is to toke up on the sofa and watch endless television entertainment, I'm pretty sure I'd rather have somebody else as a co-worker anyway.
The real fears of UBI come from the old sermons: "Idle hands are the Devil's workshop" and all that, but the silent minority has learned to hold their tongues about such things when they might mark themselves as religious nutjobs at a time when religious nutjobs aren't in control.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 26 2023, @03:24AM (6 children)
The whole thing. If you're that financially secure, you're secure enough to sit around.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 26 2023, @08:34AM (3 children)
Have we run into the limits of imagination again?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 26 2023, @02:11PM (2 children)
Here, we have similar issues. And I know we do, because we already have income. It may not be basic, but it is pretty close to universal (around 58% [statista.com]in the US in 2021). This magic you speak of hasn't happened yet which indicates to me that it won't happen with UBI either. It's just a fantasy driving this.
Finally, the elephant in this room is who will pay for it and how will we control negative effects like increased inflation and debt? Glancing through US spending, there's only about $3 trillion (mostly Social Security) that can be theoretically replaced at present. JoeMerchant's proposal of $15k per would generate about $5 trillion in new spending (over 330 million citizens roughly). So right there, even if things go without a hitch, we've increased spending by about $2 trillion per year (40% increase). And we've created two additional problems: what happens when someone promises more UBI and gets elected? Each additional $3k is another trillion USD in spending per year. There's now an incentive for voters to vote for their interests and against the future of the US (or other developed world country).
What happens with mundane things like inflation - while I've heard it might be going down, it was 8% for a bit, that's $400 billion in baked in spending increase for a single year of UBI, if you want it to keep up with that level of inflation. And it doesn't help with medical cost increases (from Medicare in particular) which are set to soak up many trillions in US federal spending in future years.
Given that US government spending is already a significant contributor to inflation, we've put in a positive feedback mechanism for inflation. By itself UBI won't cause runaway hyperinflation, but historically when a government does one big dumb thing, it usually does many others. This reduces our room for error, all for terrible reasons.
Rather than build a fragile society with a bunch of couch potatoes, how about we build a resilient society that can handle the troubles and disasters that a society routinely faces?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 26 2023, @06:29PM (1 child)
> who will pay for it
The same people who pay 50% of all income to 1% of the population.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 26 2023, @06:45PM
Here's hoping other people get the clue too.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday January 26 2023, @01:31PM (1 child)
>If you're that financially secure, you're secure enough to sit around.
True, but looking at the adult offspring of the wealthy, they don't seem to be sitting around doing nothing in any greater proportion than the rest of us.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday January 27 2023, @01:38PM
There seems to be some disagreement [soylentnews.org] about that.
And another effect that bears mentioning. We already have UBI in the form of pensions. And an interesting social phenomenon emerged - the idea that one could stop working became acceptable everywhere. Suddenly there was this thing called "retirement" which everyone could do.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Wednesday January 25 2023, @05:11PM
First you have to cater to the product, then you have to cater to the market, and when everything is rolling, you reap.
Sorry, I didn't know that this is some sort of arcane knowledge...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by istartedi on Wednesday January 25 2023, @05:17PM (5 children)
To an economist ensconced in all the traditional theory, the notion of this cycle makes no sense. Although the "rational actor" model has been broken down lately in mainstream economics, it's probably still taught in introductory courses. If married to the misguided notion of corporate personhood, it leads economists to conclude that this shouldn't happen, that you're spouting nonsense despite such phenomena being readily apparent.
An economist (at least in previous decades) might naively analyze the firms as "rational actors" and conclude that there was no incentive for a firm to destroy itself in this way.
As an economic outsider, I'm under no such constraint. Corporations are not people, and even if they were, people are not rational; but in this case the people might actually be quite rational and it's the notion of corporate personhood which is a greater stumbling block to coming up with a theory to explain all this.
To get to the heart of the matter, the individual *human beings* who comprise a firm can all be perfectly rational while destroying the firm.
The employees are simply working jobs of course. It's the C-suite that can rationally destroy a firm for its own self interest. If squeezing customers and B2B partners for short-term quarterly bonuses and/or a golden parachute serves the C-suite, then they'll happily do so at the expense of the customers, the partners, the employees, shareholders, and bond-holders. They've got power. They'll get theirs.
Economists need to remodel their view of firms if they haven't already--as conduits used and often abused by semi-rational actors, in order to maximize their own personal profit.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 25 2023, @07:08PM
I worked at a (exceedingly rare) mid-sized medical device manufacturer for a while. It's a rare bird because most medical device companies start in some garage-warehouse somewhere and if they have any promise at all, they get bought out by a big player and merged into the Fortune 500 level of things. This company ended up where it was, with ~1000 employees, because it got a relatively large early stage investor who dug their heels in in the usual buyout negotiations, and when that ploy failed they ended up running the company themselves - something they were honestly rather ill equipped to do, but given who they were and where they were coming from, they didn't screw it up entirely, which is far better than the median performance delivered in that arena of growing startups to profitability.
Point of all that background was: in their rather narrow focused management style (shifting focus periodically to whatever Wall Street told them their problem du-trimestre was), they ignored many obvious problems for a rather long time, particularly during my brief 2.5 year tenure: management bonus awards. KISS, right? Well, when you keep management bonus awards simple, you end up with stupid behaviors like: managers taking bonuses away from their reports because that makes their department more profitable on the bottom line, thus increasing the manager's own personal bonus. This was in operation at all levels of the company and had uneven results... my Director had married rich - maybe that had something to do with why he would give everyone who reported to him as much bonus as they possibly earned even if it meant his own bonus would dip by 5-10%. Other departments weren't so lucky and their managers would be so crass as to first change the rules for earning bonuses too near to the end of the quarter for any of their reports to actually earn a bonus, then they'd throw the suggested "morale boosting" party at their home where they'd do things like mention that the new billiards table was paid for by their recent quarterly bonus... not the greatest morale booster I've ever encountered.
Simple lack of enough "games theory" being applied to the bonus structure rules when created, followed by the lassie-faire attitude of "Well, we're making money right? Why change things?" Really, "games theory" does explain most of economics, but you have to factor in all the things that are important to the 8 billion+ actors in the equation, and for many of them just getting more money isn't the primary motivator.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by khallow on Wednesday January 25 2023, @07:38PM
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday January 25 2023, @07:57PM
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 26 2023, @02:44AM (1 child)
From a companion article [techdirt.com]:
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Thursday January 26 2023, @09:03AM
This is part of it, and emphasizes the irrationality of the actors rather than the fallacy of corporate personhood. Spock: "To hunt a species to extinction is not logical". That's exactly what happens though. It's all too common for people to maximize short-run profit at the expense of ongoing revenue. The only way we've ever pulled it back from the brink is regulation, and even that doesn't always work. At least regulated hunting is somewhat of a success story. I'm not sure how we could apply that model to tech companies... A license to acquire, and an annual bag limit on companies, LOL.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by crafoo on Wednesday January 25 2023, @08:07PM (7 children)
jewification, or maybe jewfication
(Score: 4, Touché) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 25 2023, @08:12PM (4 children)
Jewalous, much?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Touché) by khallow on Thursday January 26 2023, @12:22AM (3 children)
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday January 26 2023, @01:52AM (2 children)
The primary driver for anti semitism seems to be their financial success...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Informative) by pTamok on Thursday January 26 2023, @08:19AM (1 child)
Well, yes; and there is a historical justification/apology for that.
Usury [wikipedia.org] is a sin. And as that Wikipedia article points out "In many historical societies including ancient Christian, Jewish, and Islamic societies, usury meant the charging of interest of any kind, and was considered wrong, or was made illegal".
In certain circumstances, Jewish tradition allowed Jews to charge interest on loans to non-Jews (more detail in the article), and the end result is that if you needed a loan, moneylending was dominated by certain people of Jewish faith. It's not hard to see how resentment would be fuelled by such a situation. If you needed money, you needed to go to (in your eyes) rich Jew, and if you failed to pay, you would be punished on behalf of the (Jewish) lender. A simpler recipe for (rich) Jews to be hated, and by extension, all Jews, would be difficult to find.
Not all Jews felt that the exceptions/loopholes in the Jewish customs that allowed lending money with interest applied to lending to, for example, Christians or Muslims, but enough did that is was common practice. It seems to be human nature for some people to take advantage of such loopholes.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday January 26 2023, @01:34PM
Good explanation, but it really points out how human nature is full of prejudice and drags the deep past into the present.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday January 26 2023, @07:31AM (1 child)
What religion was Jesus, again? :)
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 26 2023, @08:38AM
The baby Jesus was born in a manger in the town of .... Jesus Christ are we really doing this?